Yorkton ending proclamations; Saskatoon reviewing processes

Yorkton city council will soon stop accepting applications for proclamations designated for special days or special weeks.

Council decided to stop proclaiming special days and weeks, such as pride week or veterans week, and first exercised the new decision during an Oct. 21 meeting.

“What is the discernible value of a proclamation? A group comes to you and you proclaim a week. It doesn’t really add any value to their week,” Yorkton Mayor Bob Maloney said.

Maloney said proclamations have become a burden in recent years as groups used the proclamations to further its cause, sometimes with controversial endings.

That’s why Maloney started voting against proclamations.

“I never liked having a council chamber used as a soap box for somebody else’s points of view, especially on things that aren’t in our sandbox,” Maloney said. “City councils are about police, fire, streets and roads, safe communities, those types of things. It seems to distract and sometimes you get divisive things that come to council.

“You have to think about what’s the purpose of weighing in on that.”

Yorkton council is instead encouraging all groups to come forward, promote and speak so council can receive and file the interaction under official proceedings.

Maloney said many other municipalities are considering similar decisions to avoid controversies, hinting Yorkton might be among first in a long list of cities that abandon proclamations.

Saskatoon eyeing similar decision

Saskatoon is set to review its policies for flag-raising proclamations at an upcoming council meeting.

On Monday, council will be asked to consider updates to the “Flag and Proclamations Policy,” the criteria and protocol for submitting and approving flag raising requests.

Mayor Charlie Clark said the intent is to remove controversy from any proclamation decision.

“We’re doing a whole review of our proclamations and flag-raising process to try and take the politics out of it,” Clark said. “Proclamations and flag raising (is) not meant to be places to have political statements made or those types of things.”

Often times, Clark finds proclamations create unnecessary controversy, even if intentions are innocent.

“It’s just the nature of society today. There’s some contentious issues and you have to decide as a municipality at what point are those civic squares used to further one cause or another, and how much is it a way to express recognition that (is) municipal in nature and not weigh in to those debates,” Clark said.